Salamanca Native American museum expanding six-fold

A major project in Salamanca that will dramatically increase the size of the Seneca Iroquois National Museum is moving forward.

The museum will be replaced by a new facility and cultural center that will be six times its current size. Officials are aiming for a grand opening on August 1, 2017 — 40 years to the day that the original museum opened.

The Salamanca museum includes exhibits such as this longhouse, which depicts daily life for the Hodinöhsö:ni' people.

Credit senecamuseum.org

Museum director David George-Shongo says the $18 million cultural center is important in telling the history of Native Americans.

"There's a lot of interest in who we are," said George-Shango. "We've been here a long time, at the museum. I was surprised when people around here don't know the museum is here. We get people from all of the world."

George-Shongo says the museum’s attendance has been up in recent years. Native American culture will be celebrated Saturday June 4 in a Heritage Day event at the current museum site.

"We wanted to start the celebration a little early," he said, referring to the eagerly-anticipated 2017 opening of the expanded cultural center.

Library of Congress; c. 1838 lithograph, based on a c. 1828 painting by Charles King Bird

During the American Revolution, the Seneca Nation’s lands covered practically the entire Niagara Frontier. But by 1819, their territory had dwindled to five tracts covering only about 130 square miles. All along, the Seneca clan chief Red Jacket opposed the sales, as well as what he saw as other encroachments on Indian self-determination.